Software

The release of Transgaming's newest version of WineX, renamed Cedega, was met with considerable enthusiasm and interest in the Linux community last week. So much so that their server was inaccessible the day of release. Cedega is claimed to be much improved, offering the ability to play recent games released for Windows "seamlessly and transparently" under Linux. They provided me with a copy, and I was curious to see if it lived up to the hype.

OK. I have been a Vmware Workstation user for quite a while now. As always each new Vmware Workstation release offers new features and fixes bugs that plagued its predecessor. I use the hell out of this software and it has rarely let me down. Whether you use it for network administration, help desk, development, or just for fun you will definitely get your moneys worth!

My latest entree into the world of virtualized environments is the VMware GSX server. For someone who doesn't spend much time running multiple iterations of a particular application, I viewed this application as a solution looking for a problem. What I've learned in this exercise is that making a low-end server into a distributed application environment is quick and reliable using the GSX server.

Several weeks ago I signed up as a subscriber to TransGaming's Wine implementation called WineX. Their goal is to produce wine libraries capable of running Microsoft Windows games within Linux without a Windows library.

In preparation for the transition from windows to a Linux based workstation, the main focus is that of peripheral compatibility. Sure Linux is rock solid stable, and has an almost totally customizable GUI, but dammit, if my hardware won't work, what's the point?

I have been using StarOffice for quite a few years now. It just keeps getting better. I think that the product is actually getting better ever since Sun Microsystems has grabbed it. I personally have even considered deploying at my place of employment. This Beta version has some great improvements. I find Beta 6 to be very stable (so far that is) and I am actually using it as my default Application suite.